I'll take my chances on Powerball

By D.C.

 In the print edition of Time magazine this week,they have a short piece on "What to stop spending your money on." One of the things they say is a waste of money is lottery tickets.One reason they cite is that a persons chance of winning Powerball is 1 in 195,249,054,but the chances of being killed by a meteor falling from space is 1 in 700,000.

 So,I looked into this.On of all places,lefty Brad DeLong's blog,I found this,"Reported Deaths and Injuries from Meteorite Impact." I could only find one person in America,an Alabama woman in 1954,who was injured by a meteor in the last 100 years.I had to go back to 1879 to find an Indiana man "reported" as being killed by a meteor.

 I then did some,rather light,research into Powerball,which came into being in 1992.I couldn't find,and didn't look real hard for it either,a list of all Powerball grand prize winners.But,I did find some of the largest jackpots ever won,including the following;

2005,a family from Oregon won a,before tax,cash payout of $164,410,058.03

2006,8 people in Nebraska shared a,before tax,cash payout of $177,270,519.67

2007,an Ohio man won a $314 million dollar jackpot.

Sometimes I guess statistics are not always what they are cracked up to be.The reason that the chances of being hit by a meteor seem low,1 in 700,000,is because it is taking into account every single person on the whole earth.They also have to account for an asteroid destroying the whole earth and killing everybody in one shot.These are the little tricks with numbers that liberals love to use to distort facts.

I could look at Powerball like this,you have a 1 in 195,249,054 chance of winning.With roughly 380 million people in America,you already almost have a 50% better chance of winning than an other American.Those folks who didn't buy a ticket have a 0% chance of winning,which also gives you a 100% chance of beating them.Of course,looking at numbers this way is just silly and distorts the truth.

 Look,if you cannot afford to buy lottery tickets,then don't.I'd rather waste 2 or 3 dollars a week on a chance to win millions than sitting around waiting on a meteor to drop on my head.It's a lot more fun too.